Comments on: WhoIsHostingThis: Easy and Reliable

By: Jonathan Bailey

Jonathan Bailey — Fri, 15 May 2009 11:03:32 +0000

Thanks for the upates!

By: Jonathan Bailey

Jonathan Bailey — Fri, 15 May 2009 07:03:32 +0000

Thanks for the upates!

By: Jonathan Bailey

Jonathan Bailey — Fri, 15 May 2009 06:03:32 +0000

Thanks for the upates!

By: Scott

Scott — Wed, 13 May 2009 17:08:28 +0000

The Planet couldn't really help me (even though what this website is doing goes against The Planet's Acceptable Usage Policy) and asked for permission to send my complaint to Crisishost.com (the reseller). However, before anything was sent to me the owner of Crisishost emailed me and asked that I direct all future complaints to him. It appears I may have been hasty in my judgment of Crisishost as this email opened a dialogue and it appears that Crisishost is going to help with this inappropriate behavior. If this does indeed occur then I would give high commendation to them and give myself a kick in the pants for not contacting them directly earlier. I will let you know how things turn out.

By: scott

scott — Mon, 04 May 2009 23:26:17 +0000

Thanks for the feedback. I'm in the process of trying to get some legal advice and might go to the website first with this request as what they are doing goes directly against their Privacy Policy. So not only are they invading my privacy they are also breaking a contract. The next step would then be to report this matter to The Planet. We shall see.

By: Jonathan Bailey

Jonathan Bailey — Mon, 04 May 2009 21:06:28 +0000

I'm sorry that this person is giving you such a headache. Sadly, privacy laws are a lot more frustrating in this area. I would report this matter to ThePlanet's abuse team and see if they are willing to help. This is inappropriate behavior no matter what rights he thinks you are infringing.

By: Scott

Scott — Thu, 30 Apr 2009 17:08:48 +0000

Hmmmmm...things are not turning out exactly as I expected. The second notice did result in the materials again being removed. However, the removal of the picture has clearly irked the website owner. First they put up a note saying the picture was down temporarily due to legal reasons, it would reappear soon, and if anyone has other pictures of me (the clown as the website put it) to submit them. That wouldn't be so bad, but the website used my name in conjunction with IP address I access the site from to put up my full name and some other additional private information including a work email I sometimes use. Good that the picture is down but bad my name, email, and location are up.

As far as I know my DMCA notice is completely valid so I'm not sure how they are going to get the image back up. They could do a counter notice but I don't know what grounds they would be claiming it on. As for the identifying information they put up, I'm not sure what I am going to do about that. Chasing them legally could be a total run around and I'm in no position financially to really afford the legal route.

This is certainly a conundrum and I'm not exactly sure how it's going to play out.

Just letting you know how things are turning out and again thanking you for the words of advice and encouragement.

P.S. They might be a little slower, but as you said ThePlanet does respond.

By: Jonathan Bailey

Jonathan Bailey — Mon, 27 Apr 2009 19:05:19 +0000

That's a very good list and I definitely stand behind that. Very good advice all around.

As far as being dragged back in, try not to worry about it too much. The DMCA requires hosts to ban repeat infringers so he is just digging his own grave.

Let me know how things turn out!

By: Scott

Scott — Mon, 27 Apr 2009 12:56:36 +0000

The other thing that I have learned is to make sure to keep tabs on a site if it has used your copyrighted material. Because as I have learned over this past weekend the material sometimes reappears in a different part of the website. Hence another DMCA has been filed with ThePlanet.

Just when you think you are out, they drag you back in…..

By: Scott

Scott — Fri, 24 Apr 2009 17:31:50 +0000

As of yesterday it looks like things are turning out well, although it did take a little tweaking of ThePlanet to get them to act. It took sending up a follow-up email (with the original DMCA notice included) a week after the initial submission inquiring about the status of my original complaint. When I sent the follow-up I included some additional information that may have been helpful (i.e. an indication of who the reselling host might be and the name servers) and sent to the copyright agent as well as CCing ThePlanet's legal department. Less than 24 hours after sending the follow-up email I received notification that the infringing photo had been removed by the reselling host, which I then confirmed.

Hopefully this will be the end of chasing the site in question to have my copyrighted picture permanently removed. The good thing is that the reselling host did a surgical strike, only removed my picture from the site and not taking down the whole site. I did learn a few things along the way that might prove helpful to others:

1. If you are not getting a response to your DMCA complaint, follow-up on it and CC the follow-up to any other entities who might be able to help (i.e. legal).

2. Follow the P's.......be professional, patient, and also persistent if your claim is valid.

3. Be as specific as possible regarding the location of the infringing material (i.e. right click on a photo and check it's properties as this will often give the specific location as to where the infringing material is stored) and include it all in the notice. This can be very important if you only want specific materials removed because you don't want the host to possibly take down a whole web site and then have the site owner get really mad at you, possibly stirring up a hornet's nest.

4. Use plagiarismtoday.com as a resource to make sure you do the right thing. A shameless plug on my part, but until I found this site I was really doing things hit or miss, not sure what I was getting into or chasing.

Thanks for all of your feedback, information, and as I said earlier hopefully this is now finished.